Chapter 33: Confession, Wash Away the Love Foolishness

Feeling someone behind her, Ye Qingning was quite surprised, as she had been extremely cautious all along the way.

Moreover, with the Dog System keeping its sharp eyes on her, if anyone were really following her, it would surely have noticed and informed her.

That only leaves two possibilities: either the person following her had used an invisibility charm to conceal their tracks, or they had used a magical item that masked their aura.

Invisibility charms come in different grades, and special high-level invisibility charms not only conceal the user’s figure perfectly, but they also allow them to use their spiritual energy without affecting the invisibility effect.

Such charms are perfect for a surprise attack, allowing one to strike without being noticed.

Unfortunately, these top-tier invisibility charms had long been lost to the world.

Today, the invisibility charms in the cultivation world are all basic versions. Though they can hide one’s figure, they cannot use spiritual energy once hidden. If the user tries to use spiritual energy, the invisibility effect will be greatly weakened, and they will be discovered by other cultivators.

Ye Qingning didn’t sense any spiritual energy being used by the person following her. Instead, it was an inexplicable feeling, a sense of intuition.

When she turned around, however, she found no one behind her and no one in her surroundings. But she was absolutely certain someone was following her.

This meant the person either used an invisibility charm, or a magical item that hid their aura and was hiding in the shadows.

But since the person had followed her all the way here without attacking her, it seemed unlikely they were disciples with a demonic identity. Otherwise, they would have attacked and seized her identity tag by now.

Ye Qingning stayed calm, fixing her gaze on a tree not far away, and spoke in a calm voice, “Since you’ve come, why hide? If you have something to say, why not say it face-to-face? Whether you’re friend or foe, we can discuss it.”

Only then did the system realize they were being followed and began flapping its wings, pretending to be clueless.

It was all the world restart system’s fault. It wasn’t just a bug now, but had become practically useless.

Other people’s systems are cheats, their golden fingers. Now the system is the cheat, and its golden finger is Ye Qingning. This time, it had decided to be the number one slacker system in the system world.

It wouldn’t die, so it slacked off to the extreme. As for its host… free-range! Let her figure it out!

For a moment, the air froze. After a short pause, a figure walked out from behind a large tree.

“Didn’t expect Junior Sister Ning to be so perceptive. Even though I used a magic tool to mask my aura, you still detected me,” Bai Wei sighed. “I thought that unless the other person’s cultivation level was several realms higher, they couldn’t sense this. But you, clearly a foundation-building cultivator, still noticed me. Looks like this magic tool isn’t very useful after all.”

Bai Wei sighed again, clearly disappointed. She had previously used this aura-masking tool to track the disciples in the secret realm, and it had helped her successfully eliminate someone by snatching their identity tag.

But when it came to Ning Ning, the tool didn’t seem to work as expected.

Ye Qingning was stunned when she realized the person behind her was Bai Wei.

Earlier, Bai Wei had called her Junior Sister Ye. Over the past month, as they became closer, Bai Wei started referring to her as Junior Sister Ning.

Ye Qingning had hesitated whether to reveal her identity as the second miss of the Yu family to Bai Wei, or if she should interact with Bai Wei as a lesser-known junior sister, to see if they could team up. In the end, Bai Wei had recognized her first.

Who said this girl only had love foolery in her head? She clearly had something more to her!

“Senior Sister, how did you recognize me? When did you figure it out?” Ye Qingning couldn’t help but ask, curious about how Bai Wei had recognized her.

Bai Wei didn’t dwell on how she had been detected. With a soft smile, she replied, “At first, I didn’t suspect you. But then, when I saw you take out those talismans, it clicked. I had seen similar talismans on your desk a while back when I wasn’t around, and after seeing them today, I finally recognized you.”

“I see,” Ye Qingning recalled.

Those few days when she had been practicing talisman-making, she had left some on her desk after drawing them. Since they weren’t made with special talisman paper, she hadn’t treated them as valuable and simply left them on the desk. She never expected Bai Wei would have seen them and that it would reveal her identity.

But Ye Qingning knew Bai Wei wasn’t following her just to confirm her identity. It seemed like Bai Wei had something else in mind for tracking her down.

Before Ye Qingning could speak, Bai Wei spoke again, “Junior Sister, I told you before that Longsheng always wears a hollow jade pendant so I could recognize him. But until now, I haven’t found him. Have you seen this pendant on anyone?”

Ye Qingning never imagined things would come to this so soon. If only she had exposed Qin Changsheng’s true nature earlier, she wouldn’t be in this awkward position now.

It was just like when you knew your friend’s man wasn’t worth it, and not only did he have other women, but he would also eventually harm your friend. But all this had already happened in her past life, in the original plot, and now she couldn’t say a word about it.

It was like knowing your friend’s man was a bad one, and now, here she was, unable to speak out. But she had already eliminated that scumbag from the competition.

After thinking for a moment, Ye Qingning still felt it was better to be honest and straightforward.

“Senior Sister, I know this might upset you, but I was the one who verified Qin Senior Brother’s identity and eliminated him from the competition.”

Bai Wei took a moment to process this, surprised by the revelation.

However, after understanding the whole situation, she didn’t feel resentful. After all, it had been her fiancé who made the first move, so was she supposed to just accept it?

“Junior Sister, don’t feel guilty. It’s just his bad luck. I’m not angry with you. Originally, I thought about helping him, even letting him eliminate someone to gain some points, but in this trial, I drew the demon identity, which is the easiest way to gain points, so I don’t want to lose this opportunity. Now I don’t have to worry about how to help him.”

“Also, you mentioned before that if he would take an oath to love only me, things would be different. But he kept giving excuses and refused to swear only to love me. That’s been bothering me till now.”

Ye Qingning breathed a sigh of relief, glad that Bai Wei wasn’t mad at her for exposing the truth. She felt relieved that Bai Wei wasn’t stuck in the ‘love foolery’ mindset.

It was even more surprising to learn that Bai Wei’s identity was that of the demon.

She had previously said drawing the demon identity was thrilling and stimulating, and now she was envious of Bai Wei’s luck.

“Senior Sister, don’t be upset. I know you’re hurt that Qin Senior Brother wouldn’t swear his loyalty. But the truth is, once you enter the inner sect and he’s eliminated, you’ll see if he trusts you. If he doesn’t, you’ll know his heart.”

“As the saying goes, only after being apart for a while can you truly test the strength of a relationship. Real love can withstand the test!”

“There are plenty of good men out there. If he’s not good enough, you can always find someone better! Inner sect Senior Brothers are great—handsome, tall, with great personalities. Big broad shoulders, slim waist… cough, cough.”

“Anyway, if he changes his heart, you should just kick him to the curb! Think about it, what about Shen Xuanli? Or Jiang Shaoling? As long as you’re excellent, you can find a perfect partner. Don’t hang yourself on just one tree!”

It wasn’t that Ye Qingning had to bring up these two names. The truth was, they were the only inner sect brothers she could think of by name. She just had to mention them to get Bai Wei’s “love foolishness” washed away.

But as for Jiang Shaoling, he was better off being avoided with his bad temper. He was the type to probably send his partner packing as soon as they got together!